Prescot Street E1

The site at Prescot Street is in Aldgate, near to the City of London and lies close to the centre of what is known as the East London Roman cemetery.Our project has several key aspects:

The Archaeology

The site at Prescot Street lies close to the centre of what is known as the East London Roman Cemetery in Aldgate, near to the City of London. The site is one of the last remaining un-excavated large areas of the cemetery and the archaeology it contains is invaluable for interpretation of the cemetery site as a whole. In addition, the site has a rich post Medieval history and archaeology which we will also excavate and study.

Roman

During the Roman period, the Prescot Street site was within a busy cemetery. A greater area of the cemetery has been excavated in a patchwork of sites in the area close to Prescot Street over the last 30 years. The articles here aim to give some overview of the archaeology of the Roman period and give some starting points for an exploration of Roman ideas about death and burial.
Medieval

Medieval

The site does not have a particularly rich Medieval archaeology, but there is some evidence for Medieval activity on site, especially some amazingly well preserved leather.
Post Medieval

Post Medieval

The post Medieval archaeology of the site is varied and interesting. The site was transformed from an essentially rural situation on the fringe of the City, into a densely populated city centre district. This period also affords us more opportunities to tie in local history, the built environment, antiquarian sources and local legends.
History of discovery

History of Discovery

Antiquarian discoveries of Roman material from the East London Roman Cemetery have been recorded since the 16th Century. These articles are intended to give some background to the history of the discovery and study of the site.

Putting Our Data On line

We are putting all of our excavation data on line as we dig. This is probably the first commercial project to ever attempt this. You can explore all the site plans, context sheets, photos and small finds through ARK, which allows anyone access to the archaeological data.

Community Involvement

Using a website to disseminate information about the archaeology project gives our project a strong public archaeology element. This ranges from physically visiting external audiences, such as the provision of outreach sessions in schools, local archaeology groups and arranging site visits for the general public, to providing downloadable resources for teachers and families, to a collaboration with postgraduate students at University College London, and most importantly, the ongoing production and maintenance of this website.

The Journal and Galleries

All of the people working on the project are able to make their voice heard. Their contributions are in the form of journal entries or images, and Anies, one of the supervisors, is directing and producing a series of videos for the Prescot Street videography project, the results of which can be found in the galleries section on the website. This gives context to our work, hopefully interest the wider public, and we hope it will help us in our post excavation work.